Dragon's Fire
by Brissi
Summary: Peri, a thief and smuggler in the new town of Dragon's Landing, receives a cryptic note from a strange client who goes by the name 'Smoke', requesting her to meet him alone at midnight. Once there, Peri is given a choice: accept the job and be bathed in riches, or walk away to her poor life on the streets. Peri's choice will change her life more than she ever expected.
1. Chapter 1

The market square was packed tight as the citizens of Dragons' Landing went about their daily routine, going from stand to stand, occasionally purchasing something from the vendors. The sun hung high in the sky, shining brightly against the edges of the clouds that dotted the sky, and the heat of midday was thick in the air. Summer was fully under way, baking the dusty roads and drying the streams that brought vital water to the coastal city, and it was the sort of day that would usually have Peri holed up somewhere with a scroll to read or a weapon to clean or practice with. Despite the blistering heat and choking dust that wafted up in everyone's wakes, the city was busier than it had ever been. The inns were packed full and some people were even opening up their homes for the countless travelers to make an extra coin or two, and there was an encampment set up just outside the city walls for those who counldn't find lodging.

Peri was hardly surprised; the Riders would be coming the following day and accompanying them would be a shipment of dragon eggs, all Unquickened, and that was always when the city was at its fullest. Despite being only a few years old, Dragons' Landing was one of the largest cities in Algaësia, second only to the capital, and it was mainly because of their location. Being the closest settlement to Vroengard had its perks, and one of them was the trade. Peri swatted angrily at a fly that was buzzing around her head and huffed out a breath. Desin was late. Not just a couple minutes late. He was one whole hour late, and Peri had better things to do than stand around in this dragons-fire heat, waiting for some doddery old fool to come collect his diary. She shifted the leatherbound journal that was hidden under her dark cloak, checking to make sure it was still there and also trying to get it to stop digging into her ribs.

"Five minutes," she muttered to herself, leaning forward an inch or so so she could see the clocktower that reared up from the center of the square.

She wished she could rip off the sweltering, black cloak, but it was necessary to hide the journal and to keep her features a secret from both clients and passersby. If anyone could replicate her face to the authorities, she would have a fullscale manhunt on her hands. Or womanhunt, she thought dryly to herself, reduced to cheap humor in her boredom.

Suddenly, she stilled, feeling a chill come over her bones like she was tredding on the unmarked grave of a long forgotten body. She felt the hood of her cloak ripple as if there was a slight breeze, while the rest of her cloak remained still, weighing heavily around her like a marionette on its strings. Peri whirled around and bit back a gasp of alarm as she stared into the blank darkness created by a hood's shadow. A dark figure stood in the alley behind her completely motionless except for the sway of his cloak, and even thought she couldn't see his eyes, Peri knew he was looking at her. She also knew he was dangerous, and she took an instinctive step backwards to give herself space to run. She felt the weight of her dagger more heavily now, but she didn't stir or give away the position of her weapon. She remained silent, studying the figure from under her cloak. The figure was tall, far too tall to be a woman, with Peri only coming up to his shoulder, and he was slender and willowy, but she didn't doubt his strength. Even under the heavy cloak, she could make out heavily muscled arms, folded across the man's thick chest. And yet he was graceful and slealthy as well, for he had been able to sneak up on her without her even guessing at his presence. Peri suspected the only reason she'd noticed him was because he wanted her to, which meant he wanted her alive. Probably.

The silence stretched on as neither one of them spoke, and Peri was starting to grow impatient. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, but otherwise remained still. Finally, the man moved and his arm extended towards her, his fist clenched. Peri flinched away from the man's arm, drawing a dark chuckle out of him. It wasn't really a chuckle, more of a vibration in the air. The fist opened and in its broad palm lay a scrap of paper, slightly crumpled, and folded into a small square. Peri glanced at the man's face, or where she assumed it was, then cautiously reached for the note. Swifter than her eyes could follow, the man siezed her wrist and whirled her around, slamming her facefirst into the grimy wall, crushing the air from her lungs. He yanked her hood back and Peri's long, jet black hair fell in waves down her back, exposing her as a girl. Peri didn't wait for the man to drag her off to someplace she'd never return; she jerked backwards with her free elbow, catching the man in the gut and driving the breath out of him. Peri smiled darkly as she pushed off the wall and sent the man stumbling away; the moment he'd seen her hair, he'd expected her to be some soft little princess, which worked to her advantage. She whirled to face her opponent, expecting him to be on the ground, but instead finding him standing straight, with no signs of injury or breathlessness. She tensed for a second assault, but nothing happened. They both stood frozen, hardly breathing, for a short second, and then the man extended the note towards her again. Not willing to be caught off guard a second time, Peri snatched the note quickly out of the man's hand and slipped sideways down the alley, bursting out into the bright, sunlit square where anyone would see if she was grabbed again. As she set off across the square, weaving and ducking through the mob of people, earning a few irritated glares, she swore she could feel the man's deep laughter vibrating in her chest, and it followed her all the way home.

Peri made her way towards the shadier part of town, pulling her hood back up and stuffing her hair back into it to hide her identity. Once she was hidden once more, she continued farther down the grungy street, which was lined with squat little houses, most of them missing a shutter or even a door, all of them filthy. A pair of drunks stumbled down the steet towards her, arguing vehemently about who kissed who's wife, but when they spotted her and her signature black cloak, they fell silent and stepped aside to let her pass, scrutinizing through squinty eyes blurred with too much drink. Peri ignored them and continued down the uneven dirt road, manuvering the deep, dusty ruts carved into the dried mud with her soft leather moccasins, making no sound as she walked. She passed few people on her route and she got the same reaction. Under her hood she smiled, laughing inwardly at their wariness.

After a couple more turns down similar streets, she came to a narrow alley with an empty barrel blocking the entrance, the opening barely wide enough to allow Peri to slip in, and even then her shoulders brushed the dank walls on both sides. She was up and over the barrel in a heartbeat, setting off down the long passageway. Here, in between the two buildings, the sun rarely shone on the cold, barren earth, and the tempature had dropped instantly to a comfortable chill. About halfway down the slender alley, she stopped and knelt to the ground in one swift movement, throwing a glance over her shoulder as a precaution before facing the ground before her. She brushed her hand once along the ground, sweeping away a thin layer of dirt that the wind had deposited during the day to expose a wooden board, which she pryed from the ground. Peri cast the board aside and placed her hands on opposite sides of the gaping hole she had just uncovered, slowly lowering herself into it, letting herself drop the last couple feet. As always, the ground appeared beneath her feet with frightening suddenness, but she recovered quickly and straightened. Standing straight up, her head came about halfway out of the hole, enough for her to spot the board and drag it over the opening again. Blind and slightly stooped, she set off into the blackness, hands out to the side so she wouldn't run into anything. Already, Peri's neck was starting ache, but thankfully she didn't have far to go. Within a couple minutes, the tunnel began to lighten just enough for her to make out the solid wall of dirt rearing up before her. She didn't pause at the base of the wall and slipped her hands into the holes gouged into it, scaling it in a matter of seconds and emerging in a small, empty room, devoid of any furniture or decoration that would give her presence away to anyone who might happen to find the tunnel.

"Home, sweet home," Peri murmured to herself, pushing the hood of her cloak back and taking a deep breath, drawing the scent of wood, mud, dust, and a hint of flora into her nose.

She allowed herself a moment to rest and listen, then she was on the move again, striding briskly out of the room and turning down the hall, away from the front room and further into the house. Her house. Sort of. She'd found it, and no one else used or even knew how to get in since the windows were boarded up, so it made sense to have someplace dry to sleep and hide. She imagined it must have belonged to some espionage group or smuggler, who used the passage to get people or goods in and out without drawing the attention of others.

At the end of the hall, a set of rickety stairs ascended to the second floor, half-rotted and sagging under their own weight. A stranger to the house would have reconsidered the uncertain steps, but Peri flitted silently up the stairs, barely touching the soft wood beneath her and coming to a stop at the end of a long, shadowed hallway. Like the first room, nothing decorated the walls and there wasn't any furniture. Most of the doors were closed, save for the last one on the end, which send a fan of weak light across the floor. Peri headed for that one, slipping through the doorway and stopping again to take in the room.

The small room didn't have very much in it; just a wooden bed in the far corner with a thin matress stuffed with straw and a wooden desk directly next to it. Papers where overflowing the desk and some had drifted to the floor in her absence, sprawled across the floor in disarray. She kept saying she was going to clean them out, because over half of the papers she didn't need, but she never got around to it.

Peri strode across the room, discarding her cloak as she went, leaving it in a heap by the door, and froze. She turned quickly to stare at the black cloak where it had settled silently onto the floor in a jumbled heap. She sped-walked back over and stooped quickly, shoving her hand into the coarse black fabric. After a couple seconds of pawing through the cloak, she found the hidden pocket where she kept all of her merchandise before she passed it off. It was empty, except for the scrap of paper the hooded man had given her. Where was the journal?!

Peri groaned and froze for a heartbeat, tracing the events of the day and searching for the point where the journal might have dropped out of her pocket. The trip to the market had been uneventful, the wait had been excruciatingly uneventful, and the walk home had been the same as the walk there. The only time it could have fallen out was when her attacker had appeared. Her client would _kill_ her if she lost the journal. Literally. And she could hardly leave it there overnight and get it in the morning. Who knows what people might have picked it up by then?

Mentally cursing the strange man, she snatched up her cloak and threw it on, striding out of the room and down the hallway in a matter of seconds. She fingered her dagger, which was still on her belt, wishing she'd stuck the man with it when she'd had the chance. She lowered herself back into the tunnel through a hole in the floorboards and completely skipped the ladder, dropping about seven yards and hitting the ground hard. She set off through the tunnel, doing an awkward hunched over jog-shuffle to reach the exit, which was still covered by the board. She pushed up one edge from underneath and scanned the alley to make sure no one saw her emerging from the tunnel, then shoved the board to the side and leaped out, using her hands to pull her body all the way out of the tunnel. She replaced the board and straightened, brushing off her cloak and making sure her face was sufficiently hidden. With that, she proceeded down the alley and stepped out onto the street, walking towards the market at a brisk, hurried pace.

The streets still were packed, even though it was getting darker with every passing minute, and they were lined with vendors, selling colorful trinkets, delicious treats, and the occasional toy, all designed with dragons in mind. Dragon's Egg Pie, necklaces with jeweled dragon pendants, and chunks of dragon egg that the vendors swore were good luck were just a few of the items that filled the vendors' carts. Peri ignored it all and stuck to the edges of the street where the traffic was thinner.

Once she reached the market, she cut straight across, elbowing through the crowd to reach the alley where she'd seen the hooded man, ducking out of the throng of people and into the shadows. She made her way through the darkness, one hand on her knife, the other reaching out before her so she didn't run smack into a wall. She reached the place where she and Desin had decided to meet and the place where she had stood for an hour while he'd failed to show. Digging a match out of her cloak, she struck it and knelt to the ground, searching the filthy cobblestone for any sign of the dark, leatherbound journal. Nothing. Well, except for a certain cold feeling and a slight breeze.

With a sigh, Peri straightened and turned around, knowing he didn't want to harm her, or he would have. She stared up at the place where his face should be.

"Fancy seeing you here," she snipped, not bothering to hide her irritation with this man.

The man said nothing.

"Say, have you seen a journal, brown, leather…"

Silence.

"Yes, no, maybe so?"

More silence.

"Are you, like, mute or something?"

The man pointed her cloak or, more specifically, her hidden pocket.

"Note." The man's voice was deep and a tiny bit sinister.

"He speaks, ladies and gentlemen!"

"Note."

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Read."

"Do you only speak one syllable words?"

"Read." The man's voice took on a threatening tone, and Peri scrambled to pull the note out and unfold it. She squinted at the slanted, loopy writing, trying to make words out of the chaotic scribbling. After a couple long moments, she was pretty sure she had it all right.

I have a job for you. High pay.

Meet tonight at Carvahall Dock.

Midnight. Warehouse C.

"What kind of job _is_ it?" Peri asked and looked up, but the man was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

The wooden planks beneath Peri's feet were silent as she made her way down the dock toward a seemingly empty stone warehouse. On all four of its sides was an enormous C, painted on sloppily by someone who had places to be. The moon hung full in the sky above her, illuminating the normally shady nooks and crannies Peri prefered when scoping out a meeting place. She wrapped her cloak tighter around her as the wind coming off of the sea threatened to tear it away and stepped closer to the warehouse. She was just wondering how she would get in through the locked door before her when they opened, seemingly of their own accord. They swung wide, revealing boxes stacked up in great piles that reached all the way up to the ceiling way overhead. Someone had cleared away the boxes in the center of the room, leaving an empty space. Empty, that is, except for the man standing there, his face shadowed by the flickering lights of the torches that lined the room. Peri stepped forward into the torchlight, unwilling to go any closer to this strange man.

"Is this our thief?" the man asked, in a voice both cold and rough, reminding her of a grizzly bear. She frowned, wondering who the man was talking to.

"Yes, sir," a voice spoke out of the shadows, and Peri wasn't surprised to recognize the cool voice of the man she'd met in the alley.

"Good. Come here, little girl."

Peri stiffened and had to choke back a biting comment, and strode over to the man, keeping a good distance between the two of them. Now that she was closer, Peri could make out the man's features: he had dark skin and a sharp face, like that of a bird of prey, and his eyes were a steely grey that seemed to cut through your defenses and see right down to your core. His hair, also black, was shaved close to his skull. As she studied him, the man studied her, his eyes travelling up and down her body. After a short moment of silence, the man spoke again.

"Hello, little girl," he said with a smirk, as if he knew that the new nickname grated against Peri's nerves. "I'm sure you're wondering who I am and what I want."

Peri didn't say anything, just nodded her head to acknowledge that she was listening.

"I am called Smoke," the man continued, oblivious to Peri's hostility. "And I want you to get me something."

Peri, her face still shadowed by her hood, rolled her eyes, mouthing 'no, duh'. In a flash, Smoke had closed the distance between them and seized her by the front of her cloak, bringing his face close to hers, close enough that she could see the individual pores on his face.

"Do not disrespect me, little girl," he hissed, his steely eyes blazing with anger. "I can ruin your life with one quick snap of my fingers, and there would be nothing you could do or say to change it. There are things worse than death, little girl, and I can make sure you experience them to the fullest."

Peri tried to swallow past the sudden lump of fear in her throat, something she was unfamiliar with. With all her other clients, she'd always known she'd be able to handle them if things came to a fight, but with this man, Peri knew she wouldn't stand a chance. There was something strange about him, something unnatural that set him apart.

"Do you understand?"

Peri nodded hastily, trying to calm her racing pulse.

"Answer me."

"Y-yes," she stammered, then cleared her throat and answered more strongly. "Yes."

Smoke released her cloak and pushed her back with a shove, but Peri had recovered her wits and didn't stumble. He smoothed out his shirt and took a breath, and just like that he was calm again.

"Now, what I want is very rare and hard to come by," he continued, as if nothing had happened. "And I need the best. Morgan assures me that you are the best, if a bit disrespectful, so I don't think I need to go over the formalities."

Smoke gave her a look that dared her to say otherwise. When she said nothing, he nodded and continued.

"The Riders are coming at dawn with a shipment of dragon eggs, and for one day they will reside here in Dragon's Landing. A very short window of time. The next day they will move on to the next city and I will have to go through the trouble of travelling there, finding another skilled thief, and get in contact with them all in one day, not to mention that they have to get ahold of the item before midnight, when the Riders depart each city. And should you fail, well, things won't go very well for you. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Peri said, realizing where this was going. "You want one of _them_."

Smoke smiled at her, but it was a cold, predatory smile that made her want to run and hide.

"One of the dragon's eggs, yes."

Peri nodded, spirits sinking. The penalty for stealing a dragon egg was death, if she was caught, and the penalty for refusing this job would most certainly be death as well. Very high stakes for a few measly coins. But Smoke had her trapped, and she couldn't back out now.

"In return for your services, I will grant you riches beyond your wildest dreams, perhaps enough for you to move out of that shack you live in and buy a proper house."

Peri's eyes widened in surprise; she'd been certain that no one had ever seen her enter her house, through the alley or through a break in the walls. Wrong again, Peri, she thought resignedly.

"Do we have a deal?"

Peri returned her gaze to Smoke and mulled over all this in her mind. Seeing no way out now, she nodded and Smoke held out a hand, which she accepted and shook. He snapped his fingers and the man she'd met in the alley, presumably Morgan, was beside in an instant, making no noise to warn Peri of his approach. She had to bite her lip so she didn't jump and give away her knife's position, and she cast a sideways glance at Morgan. He held a piece of parchment in his gloved hand and a quill in the other, which had been dipped in ink. Sighing, Peri picked up the quill and scanned over the parchment, making sure there was nothing Smoke had added that he'd 'forgotten' to mention. Finding nothing that raised any alarm bells, Peri scrawled her loopy signature at the bottom of the paper. Morgan whipped the parchment away, like he was afraid she would undo the ink on the paper- or maybe he just felt like being dramatic. She gave the quill back and glanced at Smoke, who waved her away in dismissal. Eager to get out of the warehouse, Peri hurried to the door and stepped back out onto the docks. While she'd been inside, she hadn't noticed how hot it had gotten inside her cloak, but now that she was outside in the cool ocean air and away from the intimidating presence of Smoke, she practically melted. For once not caring who saw, she ripped her hood away from her face and took a deep, steadying breath, tasting the salt in the air. With a wary glance behind her she started off back towards the city, then stopped, turning back to face the open warehouse doors. Every single torch that had lit the room was quenched, not even smoking like ordinary fires might, and Smoke and Morgan where gone, like they'd vanished into thin air. Shivering, and not from the cold, Peri tugged her hood back up and turned on her heel, starting back towards her home.

"Blasted witchcraft," she muttered as she walked, casting suspicious glances around her. She felt eyes on her, although she couldn't find their owners, and it sent chills running up and down her spine.

She walked all the way back to her secret tunnel and still couldn't shake the feeling. She considered staying somewhere else tonight, in case whoever was watching her was trying to find her lair, but she was just to tired and worn out. It didn't matter anyway. It was probably a spy of Smoke's and he'd already told her that he knew where she stayed. Throwing aside caution, she kicked the board out of the way and disappeared into the tunnel, dragging the board back into place and hurrying home. Too exhausted to change into something to sleep in, she dropped her cloak on the floor and fell into bed still wearing her work clothes and fell asleep instantly, half of her body hanging off the side of the bed, her fingertips brushing the floor. She had the vague sense that she'd forgotten something, something important, but she couldn't remember what. As her eyelids slid closed, her bleary gaze landing on her cloak, crumpled on the floor by the doorway, just like earlier today when she'd… she'd…


	3. Chapter 3

Only a few hours later, Peri awoke to see the faint glow of dawn on the horizon and the sound of cheering down in the streets. The Riders were here. In no time at all Peri was up and outside in the mob of people that filled almost every single street in Dragon's Landing. Even the neighborhood around her home, usually inhabited only by criminals and drunks, was packed full and she had to be careful no one saw her emerge from the ground. Now came the hard part: actually getting to the house prepared to house the Riders. Nervousness burned in the pit of her stomach like acid, but she forced herself to ignore it. She'd done a whole boatload of jobs so much harder than snatching a dragon egg. And she had one thing going for her: no one would ever expect anyone to try something so horrible as stealing an egg, so they would be prepared in the least. That didn't mean she could just waltz in and grab an egg, but it certainly eased her anxiety.

As she got closer to the docks, the chaotic rumbling of the crowd reached a degree of order; an excited chant reached Peri's ears. She couldn't yet make out the words, but she got the feeling it was something to do with dragons. Just a guess, though. Peri glanced up at the sun that was just starting to peek over the rooftops and warm the packed streets. She would have to hurry if she wanted to make the square in time. Peri shifted into an awkard jog, darting through gaps in between sweaty bodies that existed only for a moment, occasionally knocking into the people she was trying to get around.

Peri reached the town square just in the nick of time; she had just stopped at the edge of the wide space, roped off to give the dragons space to land, when she heard the thunderous wingbeats of the giant lizards. The crowd's chanting rose in volume and energy, ringing in her ears: "Dra-gon. Ri-ders." Peri stayed silent, not wanting to miss a moment of the Riders' dramatic arrival. She might be stealing one of their most precious possesions, but she was still in awe of their power and grace, just like every other human in Algaësia. She was practically holding her breath in anticipation. A gleam of brilliant color flashed in the sky above the rooftops and the square fell silent in one eerie heartbeat. The distant cheering of the observers farther out from the square could be heard, but not one man, woman, or child in the brightly lit square made a sound.

With frightening suddenness, a gargantuan shape shot across the patch of sky above, sending shards of sunlight spinning across the cobblestone. A second shape, slightly smaller in size, followed just a moment later, and at a slower speed so that the watchers could see the ornate box clutched in its talons. For one moment, the entire city sat in complete silence, broken only by the nervous bleating of livestock. The two dragons wheeled around in the sky, climbing high above Dragon's Landing, and they almost disappeared completely, when the first dragon's wings snapped shut and went into an almost vertical dive. The dragon's size grew far too fast, plummeting towards the hard earth, and some screamed in fear. Peri found herself holding her breath again, eyes riveted on the twisting shape. At the very last possible moment, the dragon flipped around and threw its wings open wide, muscles straining to slow its fall. For a moment the dragon, a dark rosey color, hung suspended above the city, neither falling nor rising. Far above, the second dragon began to make a slower, safer descent so as not to damage its precious cargo. Then the rose-colored dragon seemed to let out a breath and landed with a thump that shook the buildings in the center of the square, then lifted its head proudly, giving the crowd a regal look. The city erupted into deafening cheers and shouts of admiration, which the dragon seemed to enjoy. It tipped its head back a shot a plume of fire into the sky, drawing screams and even louder cheers from the crazed mob. Peri grinned in the confines of her hood, clapping enthusiastically, her heart racing from the exhileration. Moments later, the second dragon, its scales a spring green, landing softly beside its kin, setting down its burden. As the pair stood silently, the cheering continued.

With no visible signal, the two Riders dismounted, their hair tossed and windblown from their journey. The first was clearly an elf, with fair features and pointed ears. He had large, feline eyes that were a luminescent yellow, and his fiery auburn hair was cut close to his head. The elf lifted a hand to wave at the shifted mass of people, the sunlight glinting off fingernails that were filed to points. When he smiled Peri could see fangs instead of blunt human teeth, and the smile was less than friendly, with more of a feral feel to it.

The second Rider was the complete opposite; a female, human, and much softer in appearance. She had eyes the color of a pure mountain spring, bright and friendly, and long blonde eyelashes framed them. She was short and petite, like a doll, and her mouth seemed to turn up at the corners like she was used to smiling. Her hair fell to her shoulder in golden curls, partly hiding her face. She stood modestly by her dragon, who stared around protectively, one wing partially extended over her Rider to block out the sun. With skin as pale as hers, she had to burn easily.

After a minute or two of celebration, the crowd showed no signs of stopping, so the elf stepped forward and raised both his hands, gesturing for quiet. Peri didn't expect the crowd to take notice, and for the most part they didn't, but the few that did shut up immediately and shushed those around them, pointing at the elf. Slowly the noise died down to a calmer level and the elf began to speak.

"Greetings, citizens, travellers," he announced in a loud, commanding voice, letting his clawed hands drop to his sides. "We thank you for this overwhelming welcome to your beautiful city."

A few people tried to start up another cheer, but a look from the elf silenced them instantly. After a brief pause, he continued.

"My name is Dareth, and this is my dragon, Freida."

The elf gestured to the larger dragon and she snorted out a cloud of smoke, staring around at the crowd, her eyes blazing with energy. The elf glanced to his companion, and she stepped forward, her feet making no sound at all on the dusty stones.

"I am Iridessa," she called, and her voice was just as warm as her face, like a warm, lazy river washing around your feet. "And this is Kaji."

Iridessa smiled happily and Kaji made a rumbling sound deep in chest, somehow making her predatory eyes seem less threatening as she gazed around at the city's inhabitants. The dragon's gaze landed on Peri and a flicker of recognition appeared in those bottomless green pools. Kaji eyes seeming to pierce right through her cloak, and she gave an amused chuff. Peri frowned in confusion and the dragon repeated the noise, then looked away. It was like the dragon had known her, seen her before, and Peri didn't like it. She tugged her hood farther down and nervously fingered the dagger on her belt, but the dragon didn't glanced her way again.

"Tomorrow, we will have the Procession, where all those who are ages eleven through nineteen will have the oppurtunity to lay their hand on four Unquickened dragon eggs," Dareth declared, gesturing to the chest that held the eggs he spoke of. Peri studied the box, searching for any signs of a lock.

The chest, forged out of gold and rimmed with a coppery metal, was set with countless gemstones ranging from black to brilliant yellow to the rosey pink of Frieda's scales. There were handles on either side, carved in likenesses of a dragon's head. A swirling, elegant pattern had been carved into the box's lid, dizzying to look at and altogether beautiful. There was no visible lock, but Peri was willing to bet it was sealed with magic. The Riders weren't stupid. Peri's attention was snatched from the chest when Dareth began speaking once more. Peri was beginning to dislike him; he seemed a bit too dramatic and, well, loud. Still impossibly graceful and beautiful, but loud.

"For now, let the celebrations begin!"

Taking the hint, the crowd erupted into cheers, growing louder and louder as the people farther away began to catch on. Dareth stood there in the center of the square, grinning. Iridessa went to his side and murmured something in his ear, to which he nodded, and the two of them went over to the box, each taking one carved handle with both hands. Iridessa's lips moved, her voice too soft to be heard over the noise of the square, and she touched one hand to the top of the box. With surprising ease, the two Riders lifted the box and carried it across the square to a huge building that had also been roped off. This was where the Riders would be staying, appropriately named the Riders' Lodge.

The building was simple and elegant, with many stained glass windows that could be thrown open on a hot day. Each window had a small balcony just outside so that Riders could get a breath air or communicate with their dragons without having to brave the square, where they would be mobbed with people. Plants covered the granite stones that made up the Lodge's wall, grown there by elvish Riders who had stayed there before so that, in spring, the Lodge was a collage of yellows, pinks, blues, reds, and so on. While the flowers were in bloom, the square, usually reeking of body odor and mud, enjoyed the sweet aroma of flowers. Even when no one tended to them, the flowers still grew with the help of elvish magic. The Lodge's roof was different from the rest of the buildings in Dragon's Landing because it could be opened from the inside to allow the dragons to poke their heads inside, and for the Riders to get to the roof easily. That was where Peri would enter the building in the dead of night, while the celebrations would still be going on. Hopefully the noise of the city would help to cover up her movement.

As Iridessa and Dareth approached the Lodge, its solid, oak doors, decorated by an elaborate carving of a tree, the Menoa Tree to be exact, were thrown open from the inside and two of the men who worked in the Lodge, dressed in simple, white cotton shirts and tan pants that down to the knee, stepped out to make sure they didn't close again. Their black leather shoes, meticulously polished to a shine, snapped together with a click, and they bowed their heads as the chest was carried past them. Once the Riders were inside and out of sight, the two men slipped back inside, pulling the doors shut with a low boom that Peri could here even above the deafening cries. The dragons glanced at each other and, with a nod, they flung themselves into the air, flapping their mighy wings to get above the rooftops. Once they were clear, they shot off across the city, drawing screams of excitement and awe from any they passed above.


	4. Chapter 4

Peri walked aimlessly from place to place, looking around at the revelry and occasionally joining in. She watched a gypsy man swallow a sword, for once not trying to explain it and just enjoying the show. After all, tonight was a night for magic. The man, short and mousey-haired, slowly drew the steel blade out of his mouth and, once the tip was clear, he waved it in the air, drawing cheers and few crowns out of the crowd. He bowed theatrically and tossed the sword to a small, ratty boy standing off to the side. The watchers gasped, then applauded when the boy caught the twirling metal easily by the handle. Glancing at the darkening sky, Peri slipped away from the show and began to make her way back to the square.

Along the way she passed a vendor selling fireworks and, on a whim, she bought some, not really sure what she would do with them. She slipped the explosives into her cloak pocket and felt the pearl handle of her dagger, an old family heirloom from her absent parents. Peri's mood plummeted at the thought of them. She could still see the day they left, even though she had only been five. The tears staining her mother's cheeks as her only child clung sobbing to the hem of her dress. The anger in the ophanage woman's eyes as she dragged her away, tossing her to the ground. The cloud of dust left behind when Peri lifted her head again. Gone, just like that.

Peri tripped over something lying in the street and she barely caught her balance in time. She glanced back at the object and realized it was a person, drunk and passed out in the middle of the street. She rolled her eyes in disgust and strode away, swearing for the billionth time never to get drunk enough to humiliate herself like that.

She reached the square just past sunset and casually leaned against the clocktower building, studying the Lodge from across the square and, more importantly, the buildings around it. None of them were close enough to the Lodge for her to safely leap across, but nothing about this job was safe. Might as well get some adrenaline rush out of it. She decided the town hall would be the shortest jump and straightened. She meandored across the square, pausing from time to time to join in the festivities so she didn't look suspicious. Well, any more suspicious than she already looked with her black cloak and hidden face. Maybe she should have left that at home? Ah, well, too late now. Peri finally reached the town hall and slipped inside with hardly a sound.

Inside, the town hall was dark and empty, a slap of sanity after the chaos outside. Peri took a moment to settle herself, breathing in, then out, and set off towards the stairs in the far back corner of the room. She passed a few empty rooms, offices for big officials who were probably out drinking at this moment, making fools of themselves. Peri resisted the urge to snoop around; she needed to stay focused. Reluctantly, she kept going, reaching the stairs and taking them slowly, testing each surface before putting her full weight on it. She never knew who might be in here, and a random creak would definitely raise the alarm. But she made it up the stairs safely and stepped out onto the second floor. Now she had to get to the roof.

Peri scanned the dark room to make sure no one was up here watching and went to a window in the side of the building that opened into the the alley between the Lodge and town hall. Before she eased them open, she reached into her cloak and drew out a vial of grease she kept for situations like this. She dabbed a couple drops on each hinge and stowed the vial back in her cloak. She popped the lock on the window and slowly pushed it open, flinching at the slightest squeak and waiting for minutes at a time before moving again. After a while, she had the windows wide open and lying flat against the outer wall of the building. Peri stuck her head out and glanced up and down the alley to make sure she didn't have an audience, then stepped up onto the windowsill. With practiced ease, she siezed the frame and swung herself out of the window, her free hand finding an impossible handhold in the stone. She braced her feet against the stones and hauled herself upwards, scaling the wall in a matter of seconds, finding purchase in the tiniest of cracks. By the time she reached the roof, her fingers were aching and it hurt to flex them, but she had made it and that was another section completed. She pulled the rest of her body over the edge and lay flat against the tiles, her cloak spread across her body.

Suddenly, the space between the two buildings seemed impossibly far, and the drop seemed all to real.

"Deep breaths," Peri murmured, her voice barely above silence.

She laid there for five hundred heartbeats, then rose and backed up five steps from the edge. She took one last breath to steady herself and broke into a loping run, picking up speed with each stride. The gap approached with frightening suddenness, but Peri refused to let herself chicken out. She'd leaped much farther than the distance between the buildings. It was only the dizzying drop that she would experience if she failed that- NO. Don't think about it, she chastised herself, and launched herself across the void. She threw her arms wide, for a moment feeling like a bird in the wind, the cloak her wings. And then her foot landed on the roof of the Lodge, the shock traveling up her leg. Her right leg wasn't so lucky and it dropped with nothing to support it, slamming into the wall. Peri's weight pitched backwards and she lunged forward, clawing at the barren surface and just barely dragging her leg up onto the roof before she lost her balance completely. She flopped down on the cool surface, her breath coming in heaves as her heartrate started to slow.

"Why couldn't they just stick a nice, sturdy bridge right there?" she panted in between colorful swearing. "Make it a little easier for me."

Before long, she had to get up and keep going, because the longer she sat here on the roof, the more she risked discovery. She rose to her feet and made her way silently across the flat surface, searching for the door the Riders used to get up here. A chilly wind ripped through the still night air, and Peri's head jerked up, searching the skies for dragons. She didn't see any, but that didn't mean they weren't up there, watching, warning their Riders of a strange presence just above their heads. Peri picked up the pace, her keen eyes sweeping around the space. And then she saw it.

Small, wooden, and sloppily disguised, the door was so obvious that she was surprised she hadn't noticed it before. She went over to the trapdoor, which was set in the center of the Lodge's roof. A sleek handle was attached to the sturdy wood, but there was no sign of a lock. Before she tried the door, she laid down flat on the roof, pressing her ear to the wood and straining for sounds of people or elves. Peri could make out voices, but they were muffled and, thankfully, not in the room below her, so she sat up and wrapped one hand around the cool metal, easing it open just a crack. No one cried out in alarm, so she lifted the trapdoor higher, revealing a tiny set of stairs that descended into a dark, empty room.

"No turning back now," Peri breathed to herself, barely making any sound at all.

With that, she stepped onto the stair case and closed the trapdoor above her head, sealing her fate.

Peri slunk down the stairs, eyes straining for movemen in the shadowed gloom of the room. Shapes sprang out from the black, distorted by the lack of light, and she couldn't tell what they were until she moved closer. She carefully explored the room, making sure she knew the exact layout of all the furniture in case she needed to make a hasty escape. She found that the room was mostly empty except for a book shelf in the far right corner and a table covered in papers in the far left, which made memorizing it a heck of a lot easier. There was only one door out of the room and it was directly in between the bookshelf and the table, so she crept over to it and pressed her ear to it, listening intently for any signs of people on the other side.

"Come on, Dareth, you can't sit up here alone while everyone else is having fun." Peri recognized the friendly voice of Iridessa.

"Watch me." That would be Dareth. Such a charming man.

"The whole point of being here is to make nice with the people of Algaësia, not hide in the Lodge as often as you can."

"I'm not hiding! I could go outside and celebrate for hours if I wanted to." There was the sound of a chair scraping against the floor and footsteps as Dareth left the room. Moments later, Peri could hear his footsteps clumping down the stairs, maybe a little too loudly. Iridessa's softer footsteps soon followed, right out the front doors of the Lodge and into the night. What luck! Peri felt like celebrating, but she couldn't lose focus now. She carefully nudged the door open and peered inside.

The room, like the one she had just come from, was mostly empty save for a table surrounded by four chairs, except this one was lit by an unnatural ball of swirling flame that hovered in the center of the table, casting flickering shadows across the walls. Mesmerized, Peri walked towards it, leaning in close to see each individual tongue of fire. Suddenly she realized it gave off no heat, and she frowned. The flames lost their appeal, and Peri turned her back on them, searching the rest of the room for signs of the elaborate chest that held her prize. Finding nothing in that room, she moved on to the next one, emerging at the top of a flight of stairs that led straight down to the front door. The hallway extended to her left and to her right, with about five doors in each direction. Peri was debating which direction she would search when a door on her right creaked open. Peri quickly stepped out of the doorway, where her shadow would be visible thanks to the strange ball of cold fire, and shrunk down into a crouch.

A servant emerged from the open door down the hall, holding a large object in his arms that, despite its size, seemed very light. Peri tipped her head in curiosity, but remained still, flattening herself to the wall. As the servant started down the hall towards her, she prayed he wouldn't suspect any intruders and therefore wouldn't be looking for any. On the outside she was frozen in place, her breath silent, but inside her heart hammered in her chest.

The servant, a boy of about fifteen, a few years younger than Peri, kept walking, oblivious to the heart attack he was giving a certain thief only a few steps away, whistling happily. The sound grated on Peri's already frayed nerves, but at least it covered the sound of her breathing and any other noises she might accidentally make. When the boy reached the stairs, he turned and walked down to the first floor, still whistling, leaving Peri alone again. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and rose, smirking a little. If you stayed below or above eyelevel, you were less likely to be spotted. She'd learned that early in her career. The darkness helped too.

Steadying herself, Peri turned to gaze down the hall the servant boy had come from, and nodded to herself. The Lodge staff wouldn't be cleaning an empty room, so Dareth and Iridessa were probably staying in one of the rooms down the right hall. Without any further thought, Peri crept down the dimly lit hallway, making for the half-open door the servant boy had emerged from and slipping inside.

Like the rest of the Lodge, the room Peri stood in was mostly empty, the only furniture being a bed, bookshelf, desk, and a chest that sat at the foot of the plain wooden bed. Peri looked closer at the chest but was disappointed to find that it was a simple oak one used for storing clothes. She checked it anyway, sifting carefully through the few garments that lay inside. From the looks of them, they were Dareth's clothes, with a definite elvish flare to them. Once she had deamed the chest empty of dragon eggs, Peri shut the lid softly and searched the rest of the room. She found a sword and sheath, both the same shade as Freida's scales, but she left them where they were. The rest of the room yielded the same results: nothing. Biting back a sigh of frustration, Peri slipped out of the room, careful to leave to door exactly as she had found it.

After a quick scan of the halls, Peri moved to another door and cracked it open, but this room truly was empty, with no signs of anyone living in it. She gave it a quick search and moved on, crossing the hall to the room opposite the empty one. This one was empty too, and the next, and the next. With two doors unexplored, Peri was getting anxious. What if Iridessa and Dareth came back before she could find the eggs? They'd probably kill her, or worse. With newfound urgency, Peri peaked into the next room.

She let out a disappointed breath as she scanned the space, and shifted her weight to pull the door closed, when the moonlight coming in through the stained glass window sparked off of something and caught Peri's eye. Hardly daring to believe it, Peri opened the door all the way and stepped inside, closing it behind her. She crossed the room, made her way around the simple bed, and stopped, eyes fixed on the hynotizing patterns that decorated the box's surface.

It was just as beautiful as it had been earlier, maybe even more so, with the colored light of the moon reflecting off its jeweled surface. Peri reached out with one hand, which trembled with the weight on this moment, and placed her palm on the chest's lid, running her fingers along the smooth metal and sharp edges of the gems. She might have stayed there forever, except for a loud bang in the street as a firework jetted into the sky, exploding above her and jarring her out of the trance this box put her in. She blinked and pulled her hand back, then set to work trying to open the chest.

It was locked, that much was clear, but there was no keyhole visible, which presented a problem. Peri couldn't pick a lock if she couldn't see it. She placed one hand on the top of the chest for support and leaned down, peering at the sides of the boz, when she heard the faintest click. Sitting up sharply, she removed her hand and siezed the lid, but when she pulled up, the box remained locked.

"Huh," she murmured, sitting back on her heels. "I could have sworn…" Her eyes drifted along the top of the box and came to rest on one jewel that was bigger than the rest, an enormous blue sapphire polished smoothly into a round oval. She looked closer at it, driven by a feeling in her gut, and she spotted a smudge on it… from her hand. Her eyebrows shot up and she touched it again, listetning carefully. Silence.

"Of course, since you're already touched it."

She searched the box again and found two other gems like the sapphire; big, round, and smooth. One was a blazing red ruby and the other was crystal clear, a diamond. Peri touched her hand to the ruby and was rewarded with a barely audible click. She felt a surge of hope and reached out towards the third and final jewel. The instant her fingers touched the smooth surface, a click resounded, louder than the rest, and the sound of gears working came from inside the chest. When the sound stopped, the box sat there, looking the same as it had when she'd found it. Cautiously, she grabbed the edges of the lid and lifted, and to her surprise and delight, it swung open on silent hinges, revealing the treasures inside. Peri could hardly breath as she examined its contents.

There were three eggs, nestled in a bed of wool, and strapped into place so that they didn't bump around, and Peri was amazed at the variety of colors. One was a soft shade of lilac, with spidery veins of black streaking through it, another was a midnight blue with silvery specks, and the last was a simple creamy white. Instinctively, Peri reached for the blue egg, then snatched her hand back.

Which egg would Smoke want? Again she reached out for the midnight egg, but a feeling a lot like nausea hit her at the thought of handing that egg over to him. Instead, she moved to pick up the cream egg, when, inexplicably, she found herself running her fingers along the midnight egg's leather restraints. No, not that one, she thought firmly at her body, but even then her mind's voice was growing weaker. The cream one, it called from afar, but Peri couldn't make herself listen. She seemed to fall deeper and deeper into the egg's murky depths, until she realized her forehead was inches from the shiny surface. Sit up, she commanded herself, but her body did the opposite, and she touched her forehead to the blue egg, eyes open wide.

As her forehead met the cool shell of the silver-flecked egg, the world shrunk to just her and the egg. Her heartbeat pounded in her chest and her breath came in desperate gasps, like she'd just run across the city at a dead run. Something shifted in her mind, some unknown part she hadn't been aware of before, and feelings that weren't hers invaded her mind. Happy… found her… Rider.. mine… The fragmented thoughts came faster and faster, blurring until Peri couldn't understand them anymore and her head hurt with trying. She tried to pull away, but some unknown force held her in place, unable to move. All of a sudden, the torrent ended and one thought boomed above the others, echoing in her mind.

Her name. Peri.

Peri's eyes rolled back in her head and she fell back, hitting the floorboards with a muffled thump as she lost consciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

The terrible pounding in her head was the first thing Peri noticed as her eyes blinked open.. Her whole body tingled like she'd been struck by lightning and her eyes where blurry and unfocused. Moaning softly, she blinked to clear her head and looked around, not sure where she was. One hand to her forehead, she got to her feet, staggering as all the blood rushed out of her head. Once she'd established some degree of balance, she looked around again, and the memories crashed back into her brain. Iridessa, Dareth, the egg… the egg! Peri whirled to face the crate, which sent her staggering drunkenly across the room as the earth tipped beneath her feet

"Blasted witchcraft," she muttered, along with a few other choice words, and she began crawling towards the crate, giving up on standing at the moment. She reached the box without incident and pulled herself up to look inside. There sat the three eggs, looking completely ordinary. Peri frowned and reached out, touching her fingertips to the midnight egg and running them along its polished surface.

Out of nowhere, a bolt of happiness shot through her mind and she bit back a cry of surprise. She yanked her hand back and stared almost fearfully at the blue egg, expecting a firebreathing dragon to emerge at any second. But nothing happened.

"Of course, stupid," she muttered to herself. "It's not even hatched yet."

Scooting back over to the chest, Peri looked closer at the egg, admiring the pattern on its shell. Almost subconciously, she reached out and undid the straps holding the orb in place and eased it out of its nest. The egg was cool as she held it in her hands, and yet it seemed to radiate a sort of energy, an energy that increased whenever Peri touched it. Maybe it could hear her…?

"Hello?" she breathed, and the response was instantaneous. A wordless greeting appeared in her mind, and the presence felt familiar and right, like it had been there all her life.

"You can hear me?"

_Peri._

Peri smiled at this, enjoying the sound of her name rolling through her mind. The unhatched dragon gave a hum of pleasure, which she could feel through the shell of the egg, vibrating in her hands. She sat there for a long while, and slowly the dragonling's mind extended towards hers, slipping past her walls with no effort at all and exploring her thoughts. Peri let it, even shoving some memories forward for the dragonling to experience. The dragonling seemed particularly amused when it came across a memory from when she was three, of the time her parents had taken her to the lake and she'd fallen off the dock. The dragonling gave another hum and flitted to the next memory, the one of her meeting with Smoke.

A stab of fear and worry pierced Peri's mind, sharp as a knife, and she cried out, letting the egg drop from her lap. It hit the ground with a muffled thud and rolled away, but Peri was to preoccupied with the foreign thoughts in her head.

"What, what is it?" she gasped out, holding her head to try and ease her headache, which had come back full force.

_Peri. _This time her name was a plea, accompanied by an image of herself, handing the midnight egg to Smoke. The dragonling gave an agitated squeak, and Peri rushed to comfort it.

"It's okay, I won't let him have you, it's okay, it's okay…" she trailed off as the dragonling's fear eased, and she could function well enough to retrieve the egg from where it had rolled. Dusting off the shell, she knelt by the bed, sitting back on her heels, hugging the egg to her body. She realized she was breathing heavily, her breath all too audible in the quiet setting. She tried to calm her breathing while comforting the dragonling at the same time, not an easy task. And the sound of the Lodge doors opening downstairs didn't help either.

Peri shot to her feet, destroying whatever progress she'd made with her breathing, and her gaze shot all over the room. She held the egg in one hand and closed the chest with the other, listening to the gears work as it locked itself again, and hurried to the door. She eased it open and peered down the hall, considering her chances of getting down the hall and into the room with the cold fire. The footsteps on the stairs greatly diminished those chances. Adrenaline racing through her veins, Peri backed into the room with the chest and shut the door again. Okay, deep breaths, no panicking, she thought to herself as she whirled around, searching for an escape route. Immediately her eyes went to the window and she realized it was her only choice. She slipped the egg into her secret pocket so she could have both hands free and strode silently over to the stained glass window. It portayed the battle between Eragon Shadeslayer and his half-brother, each astride magnificent dragons, the sword of Morzan in the great Rider's grip.

Peri shook her head and flipped the latch that held the window closed, moving quickly as the voices and footsteps reached the top of the stairs. She swung the windows open and stepped out onto the balcony, breathing in the fresh night air. She paused, considering shutting the windows again to cover her tracks, but she was running short on time and she wanted to get away from the scene of crime as fast as she could. Peri turned to face the wall, searching for a way up to the roof, but unlike the town hall, the walls of the Lodge were smooth and seamless, providing no escape for a certain thief on a balcony. Peri searched desperately for a way out and was about to duck back inside to find a hiding place when she heard someone grab the doorknob and twist it. Peri swore colorfully and spun around, placing her hands on the balcony's rail and vaulting over it.

Peri felt her stomach drop as she fell from the second story balcony, staring at the cobblestone rushing up to meet her, looking awfully hard. She closed her eyes and braced herself for impact. Her feet slammed into the stones that paved the square and she felt her ankle twist underneath her as she fell to one side. Biting back a cry of pain, she got quickly to her feet- too quickly, according to her throbbing ankle- and disappeared into the mob of people packing the town square. She only made it four hobbling steps before a roar of fury echoed across the city, mirroring by a shout coming from the Lodge. The entire city fell silent and still, so Peri did the same. Running now would make her stick out like a dragon in a china shop. There was a long moment of silence, and Peri was finding it hard to breath.

Suddenly, the doors of the Lodge burst open and Dareth stormed out, looking murderous. Wingbeats thundered above, probably Freida's. Whoever flew above them let out a second roar, and after a moment it was answered. Iridessa pushed through the crowd and ran to Dareth, a look of shock and anger on her face. She fell into step beside him and the crowd parted as the made their way to the fountain in the center of the square. Peri began edging ever so slightly towards the nearest road, the weight of the egg dragging her down. She gave herself a mental slap for being so sloppy. Everything about tonight was sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. She'd let herself get distracted and she hadn't planned her escape route… the list went on and on. Dareth and Iridessa reached the fountain and they climbed up onto the rim, their heads visible above the crowd.

"Who has it?" Dareth hissed, his feral features drawn in anger.

"Has wha?" a slurred voice called, belonging to someone with way too much alcohol in their system. Dareth shot the poor man a glare that could have killed a basilisk.

"The egg," he said, his voice high and mocking like he was talking to an ignorant child. "Someone stole one of the dragon eggs from the Lodge tonight."

If possible, the square got even quieter, and slowly the noise from the rest of the city peetered off as well. Dareth's gaze swept the crowd and Peri had to fight the urge to cower in fear.

"If our thief would step forward and return the egg now, their sentence will be less severe. If we have to hunt you down…"

Peri gulped and her legs trembled, but she managed to remain standing and shuffle closer to the edge of the square. She could easily fill in the blanks Dareth left. None of it was fun. Dareth remained silent, eyes scanning the crowd for a guilty face. Peri was glad she was wearing her hood, because she wasn't sure she could keep the elf out of her mind. She watched the elf's expression grow even darker when no one stepped forward, and the elf lifted one hand. His lips moved like he was speaking, but Peri couldn't hear what he'd said.

Suddenly, her muscled siezed and her whole body went rigid. Her eyes flew wide, but that was all she could do besides breathe. She was paralyzed. A single glance around at the square told her that the other citizens were experiencing the same thing, all except Iridessa and Dareth. The pair stood up on the water fountain, looking slightly drained from casting such an enormous spell. On a silent signal they climbed down from the fountain and began making their way through the crowd, searching each frozen figure thoroughly. Peri's heart began to speed up again as Iridessa got closer, her normally open face cold and drawn. Peri's ankle throbbed painfully but she could do nothing to relieve it of her weight. All she could do was watch as her iminent death drew closer, one citizen at a time.

Iridessa finished searching a redheaded man with a shocked grimace on his face, which at any other time would have been hilarious, and stepped up to her, reaching up with one hand. Peri wanted to flinch but, of course, she couldn't. Iridessa tugged her hood back and Peri's raven hair tumbled down her back, the moonlight illuminating her face. She stared unblinkingly at the Rider, who stared back at her. For a heartbeat neither of them moved, and Peri knew that she'd been caught. But then the strangest thing happened. Iridessa's mouth quirked in a knowing smile and her eyes sparked mischieviously. The Rider lifted Peri's hood back over her head, leaving her blinking in the darkness of her cloak. Iridessa lifted one finger to her lips, smiled conspiratively, and moved on to the next villager.

If Peri had control of her body, her jaw would have dropped open in shock. What just happened? Why didn't Iridessa tell Dareth she found the egg? Was she in league with Smoke? Was Dareth in on it too? He certainly looked like he wasn't, but with elves you could never be sure. Peri's eyes followed Iridessa as she carried on searching, taking her own sweet time. After roughly an hour hours, everyone in the square had been thoroughly searched, and Iridessa still hadn't said anything to Dareth. The two convened back at the water fountain, speaking in hushed tones. All through their meeting, Peri kept expecting Dareth to whirl around and charge towards her, palms glowing with magic. But he didn't.

With no warning, Peri's muscles unlocked and she tumbled to the ground, along with every other man, woman, and child in the city. Peri managed to catch herself with her hands before she faceplanted the ground, while the redheaded man wasn't so lucky. Confused and sore from standing still for over an hour, Peri got slowly to her feet, muscles screaming, glancing over at the fountain. Dareth and Iridessa stood on the rim, watching the citizens recover from their spell. After a long minute of stretching, complaining, and a whole lot of groaning, the people in the square were standing, more or less. Iridessa and Dareth were getting plenty of dirty looks, but no one dared break the frigid silence that coated the square. Dareth cleared his throat, drawing every set of eyes that weren't already on him.

"Our search has yielded little results, but we _will_ recover the egg," Dareth announced, his voice echoing over the entire city. "As of now, this city is on lockdown until the egg is returned or recovered. Go to your homes and stay there. Anyone caught outside falls under the shadow of suspicion and will be taken in for questioning. Go!"

Dareth shouted the last word, sending the crowd bolting for the edges of the square, fearing magical retribution if they were the last out of the space. Peri went with the crowd, thoughts still in turmoil. The whole walk home she expected Freida or Kaji to come swooping out of the sky and pluck her off the ground, but neither one made an appearance. Peri was so lost in thought that she had walked halfway down the street before she realized she'd passed her alley. She hurried back and snuck inside, listening for thundering wingbeats in the night sky above. But the city was eerily silent as she made her way to her room. She strode through the door and closed it behind her, something she never did because it cut off an escape route should one of her clients or enemies find her here. But tonight it made her feel safer, more hidden as she sat down on the edge of her bed and slid the cobalt egg out of her cloak.

She held the orb in her lap, the events of the night finally hitting her. She'd _stolen_ a _dragon_ _egg_. And not only that, but it had Quickened for her. Her, a wanted thief. It all made no sense to Peri. She ran her fingers along the smooth surface, admiring the silver flecks set in the stone. Like the night sky, she thought to herself.

_Peri._

Peri smiled, then was interrupted by an enormous yawn. Now that the adrenaline was fading, Peri realized how exhausted she was. She got up and went to the corner, where she pried up a few floorboards, revealing a small hollowed out space barely big enough for the egg to fit. A few random items rested in the bottom, so Peri scooped them out and threw them behind her, not caring where they landed. She slipped her cloak off and used it to line the hole, then gently placed the egg inside. She reluctant to leave it there alone, but she could hardly sleep with it, where anyone could peek in the window and spot it. No, it was safer here. Peri sighed quietly and replaced the boards, then strode over to her bed, her long, black hair swinging like a pendulum. She crawled into bed and wrapped her thin blanket around her, closing her eyes. She tried to sleep, but all she could think about was Smoke. What would he do to her once he realized she wasn't going to deliver the egg? He already knew where she lived. Where was she supposed to meet him, anyway?

_Peri_.

The thought came loud and clear, even though the egg was all the way across the room. Its tone was gentle and soothing, yet scolding at the same time. Its message was clear: Go to sleep. Peri smiled wearily and tried to calm the storm of questions in her mind. The dragonling helped by filling her mind with a mental hum, drowning out all her thoughts, and soon Peri was deep in sleep. The dragonling kept her sleep dreamless, keeping watch over her mind.


	6. Chapter 6

It was the silence that woke Peri from her sleep.

She blinked open her eyes and immediately shielded them from the beam of light filtering in through the shutters. She turned her head to the side and waited a second for her vision to clear, then looked around. Nothing was out of the ordinary at first glance, but something was off. Quickly, she rolled out of bed, bounced to her feet, and crumpled to the ground, letting out a barely suppressed cry of pain. She'd forgotten about her ankle. She laid there for a long moment while the stabs of fire shooting through her right ankle died down to a low smoldering, then sat up slowly, taking care not to jostle her injured limb. Gingerly, using her bed for support, she stood, keeping her foot an inch or so off the ground. Once she was upright, she eased herself back onto the edge of her bed and drew her right leg up to her chest. She rolled up her pant leg carefully, wincing whenever she was too rough, and gasped.

Her ankle was swollen to nearly half its size, easily, and it had turned an ugly shade of purple overnight. With every beat of her heart Peri felt the blood throbbing in her veins, making sure she always felt a dull ache in her ankle. How on earth was she supposed to get away with her ankle blown up like a Dragon's Festival balloon?! It looked like someone had replaced her ankle with a cannonball. Peri let out a low growl and whipped her dagger free of its sheath, sending it spinning blade over handle through the air. It stuck, quivering, it the wall at the far side of the room, but that did nothing to dispel Peri's anger. If anything, it made it worse, because in order to retrieve her dagger Peri had to hop across the room on one foot and yank it out of the wall with a massive heave when she could have easily pulled it free if she had two feet to brace with. Peri sent the blade flying again, this time back towards her bed, and it thudded into her pillow. Peri made to storm back across the room (or as close to storming as she could get while hopping), when a low hum sounded in her mind and successfully derailed her rage.

_Peri._

Peri eyed her dagger longingly, but she turned/hopped to face the corner where her egg- _her_ egg, she thought with delight and a little fear- and hopped towards it. Once she reached it she managed to get to a kneeling position without falling over or jostling her ankle and pulled the boards up. She brushed aside the folds of her cloak and the deep blue of her egg greeted her. The dragonling hummed in greeting and Peri sent a greeting back while she lifted it out of its hiding place. She drew the egg into her lap and shifted onto her left hip, relieving her right ankle of her slight weight. The dragonling sent her a sympathetic thought and reached out. Peri felt its mind take root in her body and its attention focused on her throbbing ankle. Almost immediately, she felt the pain diminish and was replaced by a strange numbness, like her ankle was no longer stuffed with a cannonball, but cotton. The dragonling withdrew with a self-satisfied hum and Peri smiled in amusement.

"Thank you," she murmured, and she examined her ankle. It was still painfully swollen, but at least she could put a little pressure on it without excruciating pain. _I wonder if I can stand on it now. _Peri decided to find out and got clumsily- and painlessly- to her feet, wobbling slightly. Slowly she placed her foot on the ground, adding more and more pressure until she was placing almost half her weight on it. It began to pinch uncomfortably, so she didn't push it anymore. She grinned triumphantly and stood there for a few heartbeats, gathering her thoughts. In the silence she was again struck by the feeling that something was wrong. And it hit her. The silence. Dragon's Landing was never, _ever_ silent.

Frowning in confusion, Peri recalled last night's events, which were still fuzzy from sleep. The Lodge, the freezing spell, Iridessa's strange behavior, the curfew… Ah, right, the curfew. Peri glanced over at the window and decided it was time to test her walking abilities. She took a hesitant step with her right foot, but she felt nothing more than a twinge as she quickly brought her left foot up next to it. Emboldened, she limped over to the window without pausing and pressed her eye to the crack in the shutters, resting all of her weight on her left foot. The sights that greeted her were unfamiliar and eerie.

The streets were completely vacant. Not a person, animal, or breath of wind traversed the deeply rutted streets. There were no drunkards passed out in the streets or stumbling home with a bottle in their hands. There were no worn, weathered women hurrying along with their belongings hugged close to their bodies, heads bowed under the weight of their poverty. There were no mud-covered children playing in the alleys or chasing each other across the streets, knowing that no cart could traverse the cracked and ruined streets where they lived. Even the flea-ridden dogs or cats that usually slunk along the edges of the street were gone, either sensing the danger that hung over the city or eaten by some poor wretch with nothing better to feed himself. Peri smiled bitterly; Dareth had accomplished the impossible. He's silenced the Living City.

Peri closed and rested her forehead wearily on the shutters, which she had boarded shut when she'd first claimed this house as her own. What had she gotten herself into? Turning away from the window, she let herself fall against the wall and slide to a sitting position. She was in the worst position possible. She was injured, cornered with no way of escape, hunted from the air and the ground, and she was wanted by a potentially crazy, definitely lethal man with an invincible assassin that even she couldn't hide from. Why, why, why?

_Peri._

This time it was a scolding. Peri blinked and glanced down at the egg in her arms. It sent her an irritated hum that Peri understood perfectly: Quit moping and get thinking. It's annoying me. Peri smiled and gave a tiny nod. The dragonling was right. Despair was getting her nowhere. She had to focus on the positives and figure out how she was getting out of this blasted city.

She had the dragon egg, that was always a plus. She wasn't captured yet. And she knew the city's secret passageways and shortcuts like the handle of her dagger. How could she combine those advantages and overcome the disadvantages? She was drawing a blank. The dragonling gave an exasperated hum (it was clearly a professional hummer) and shoved a scene into Peri's head.

She saw flashes of a ruined city, fires ablaze on its rooftops and men engaged in bloody combat. Women and children fled through the smoke, but none of them made it far before they were cut down by enemy soldiers. The scenes flashed by before Peri could commit any of the images to memory, until they landed on a small group of people crouched by the outer wall and stayed there. The group was made up of an older man, his clothes obviously of expensive origins, along with those of the two women with him. One of the women, the younger one, clutched a small bundle to her chest and Peri realized it was a newborn child. The older woman had one arm around the other, who was crying softly. She held something clutched her fist, and she refused to release it even for a heartbeat. The man turned back to the two women and whispered something to them in a strange language. The younger woman sobbed harder but nodded, her tears carving trails through the soot that coated her face and the rest of her as well. Just then, a group of enemy soldiers appeared further down the wall and began marching towards them. The shadows hid them for now, but it was only a matter of time before they were spotted and killed. Just when Peri thought they would be discovered, the man rose to his feet and drew a magnificent sword from an equally beautiful sheath at his waist. He screamed something at the soldier and charged from his hiding place, but he didn't engage them in battle. Instead he turned and fled down a side street leading deeper into the city, and the a triumphant cry rose from the group. The mob of enemies ran after the man without thinking twice, and soon the space along the wall was abandoned except for the two women, whose sobs had been muffled by the thunder of feet and the bloodthirsty cries of the soldiers. The pair rose to their feet despite their grief and ran along the wall's length, until they reached a small door that had previously been barred by enemies. It was locked when they reached it, but the older woman pulled a key from her pocket and fitted it into the lock. She turned it and the door swung open on oiled hinges. Before the two women stepped through the door, they glanced back at the ruined city, just in time to see the colors of the enemy hung from a castle in the distance. The pair turned away as if the sight was too much to bear and they disappeared through the gaping doorway, the cool night wrapping them up in the folds of its shadowy cloak.

Suddenly her room reappeared before Peri's eyes and she jumped at the unexpected end to the vision. She had to rub a hand against her cheek to convince herself that she hadn't actually been transported to another place, and when her hand came away free of soot, she marveled at how real the vision had felt. The dragonling gave an impatient hum, like she was missing the point. Peri frowned and tried to recall what they'd been discussing before the vision. It had been how they were getting out of the city, she remembered. But how did the scene the dragonling had showed her relate to that? Another exasperated hum and a few scenes from the vision flashed by again. The three people, obviously royals, then the man fleeing, then the two women and the child stepping through the gate. Peri's brow furrowed in thought. What the man had done… it was important. He'd led the soldiers away so the two women could escape… a diversion!

Peri shot upright and the egg nearly rolled out of her lap in her excitement. Of course! She would create a diversion, and while Dareth and Iridessa were off chasing it, she could slip out of the city unnoticed. Why hadn't she thought of that?

"You're a genius!" she exclaimed, running a hand along the shell's surface. The dragonling gave a smug hum that Peri felt in her fingertips and she laughed. "But don't go getting a big head," she warned, tapping one knuckle lightly on the egg. The dragonling sent her an indignant thought and she laughed again. She could easily picture the dragonling with its head tipped to one side, eyes wide with innocence, staring up at her with an angelic expression on its reptilian face.

Just then, a loud cry came from the streets outside her window, startling her out of her thoughts. She quickly set the egg to the side and gripped the windowsill above her head, using it to pull herself up. She pressed her eye to the windowsill just in time to spot a ragged-looking man dash out into the open, clutching a small bag to his chest. A flash of movement off to the side caught her eye and Dareth stepped out of the shadows of an alley. He sneered at the man, who was fleeing him, Peri realized, and raised one hand. He pointed at the man's receding back and his lips fluttered. A narrow bolt of light erupted from the tip of his clawed finger, shooting after the man and hitting him in the small of his back, bringing him crashing to the cobblestones. Peri bit back a gasp. The man remained where he was and didn't move, but as Dareth began strolling leisurely towards him, she thought she saw his chest rise and fall. She turned away from the window and gritted her teeth at the injustice of it all. She knew the man, although not personally, and she knew that he had a wife and three children to feed and no food to do it with. All he was trying to do was protect those he loved. She sent a quick prayer to whatever gods listened that he would be found innocent and sent back to his family soon, because she wasn't sure how long they would last without him.

Peri waited until she was certain Dareth had gone and only then did she move. An unsettling thought had occurred to her while she waited: if Dareth was just outside her house, he must have been tracking the egg. Dragon's Landing was too big for such a huge coincidence to occur. That Dareth had some way of following the egg was the only explanation for his appearance. It was only luck that the man had chosen to venture from his home at that exact moment. If he hadn't, Peri feared she would have been the one shot down in the streets. And once they found the man innocent, Dareth would be back. Peri wasn't willing to trust fate to protect her a second time. She had to move, before she was found.


End file.
